Dressage is for the birds ... literally

Okay, okay, I don't' actually mean that about dressage. However, I could not for the life of me figure out what Rose's drama was on Monday. She was all sweet and calm when I tacked her up. However, as soon as we were outside in the dressage arena she started having a conniption about the judges booth. She's been spooked in the last few weeks from a bird flying out of the booth, but she got over it. As such, it was beyond me as to why she was being such a pain about it. There were no birds that I could see flying in our out, but she refused to stay at task on that end of the arena, trying to careen her neck to the outside, cut to the inside, and slow her pace, all in attempt to turn on her heel an bolt in the opposite direction. WTF!!! To my utter humiliation we spent a good 35 minutes in our "warm up" going in tiny trot circles and trying to produce something called forward, bent to the inside, and contact. In the end I won out over the scary booth, and we got 15 minutes of work. Not my idea of a fun ride.

Afterward I thought I'd investigate the judges booth to see if I could figure out her drama. Apparently it was birds. Nesting birds! Inside the wall of the booth you could hear the babies chirping like crazy. Loud echoing chirps that were freaking Rose out. I had thought the chirps were coming from bushes, but Rose obviously has better hearing than me. Once I figured it out I felt pretty bad. I should have hopped off and investigated from the beginning. Bad horse mom!

The next day I decided we would just have a nice hack in the jumping arena, and give Rose a mental break from the birds. Our ride went great, and then I decided that I would just stay out of the dressage arena until the birds grew up and left. Well, I don't know how fast birds grow up, but when I investigated yesterday all I found was an empty nest with feathers. Maybe a predator of some sort got them?

Dressage arena judges booth

What I could photograph of the nest

I think I shall finish up the week with a hack around the jumping arena again, and we will re-visit the dressage arena next week. Although I think she'll be fine now that the chicks are gone, I just don't have it in me for one more fight this week.

Happy trails and swooshing tails!